


AM

by brightlikeloulou



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drunk Sex, Emotional Baggage, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, M/M, Post-All Out War Arc (Walking Dead)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:07:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29033658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightlikeloulou/pseuds/brightlikeloulou
Summary: Daryl and Paul find each other in the midst of the Kingdom's New Year's celebrations, drunk and carefree, they end up back in Paul's bedroom. The next morning, the mood changes.Or 'we both really like each other but are super bad at feelings and relationships' AU
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus
Comments: 58
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically i've been re-watching TWD & have fallen back in love with the characters. In this au there's no whispers, Abe got the bat & Glenn lived, so did Eric & Carl. 
> 
> WARNING  
> Daryl & Paul have (non penetrative) sex in this chapter while drunk.

Paul is drunk. 

To Daryl, that much is obvious, and what he also knows, is that he’s drunk himself. It’s New Year’s Eve after all, nearly everyone is intoxicated to some degree.

The Kingdom is alive with the sound of the living; music, singing, laughter. Everyone had been gathered in the settlement since Christmas Eve, to celebrate the holidays properly, for the first time since the turn, together. Gifts had been exchanged, too much food had been eaten and everyone finally got to have a god-damn break.

It’s an hour or so after midnight, and the massive group that had gathered in the town square to countdown the seconds to midnight had dispersed again into smaller groups, settling back onto picnic benches and into camper chairs, around fires, back into bedrooms for those whose ‘new year’s kisses’ had become something more.

Daryl had been with Rick and Judy for a lot of the night. Despite how strained their relationship was after the former sheriff’s decision to keep Negan alive, it was the damn holiday season, and he knew he should spend it with his brother. But, Judy had gotten tired soon after the excitement of midnight wore off, and Rick and Michonne had left to get her to bed, and hadn’t returned. 

That was half an hour ago, and Daryl finally gave up on waiting for them and decided to get away from the noise of the celebrations and go to the stables, to have some peace and quiet for a few moments, because after all, he still wasn’t a party guy, and that’s where Paul found him. The man had for once, made his presence known through uncoordinated, inebriated steps, and had greeted Daryl with a wide smile and flushed cheeks. If Daryl wasn’t having trouble holding back his vomit, he would have laughed at how odd it was to see the usually perfectly coordinated scout stumbling around like a baby deer.

“You don’t look well,” Paul observes, slouching down onto a large hay bale beneath one of the streetlights, yellow glow encasing his form. 

“You look pissed,” Daryl grunts in reply and sways on his feet, and as the nausea in his stomach intensifies, he joins Paul on the hay bale. A blade sticks through a hole in his jeans and stabs the back of his thigh, and when he shifts to try and remove it, he puts too much of his weight against the drunk scout, and he topples down, Daryl following. 

“Oof, you’re heavy,” Paul grunts as Daryl lands on top of him, and he feels gloved hands land on his waist to hold him steady otherwise Daryl would have gone right over his head and onto the ground. 

Daryl swears and attempts to find purchase on the hay bale to push himself up, he manages to get his elbows either side of the man’s shoulders, and he realises he’s looking right down into Paul’ eyes, round and seafoam blue, framed by dark eyelashes, pretty, “You got pretty eyes,” he finds himself saying out loud, and it takes several long moments for his mind to comprehend that was a stupid thing to say. He opens his mouth to say something, what he doesn’t know, and he fails to put any words together.

It doesn’t matter apparently, because Paul reaches up a gloved hand and grips the base of Daryl’s neck, “It’s the first time we’re celebrating the New Year in two years and I haven’t been kissed yet,” he says, and promptly lurches up as he pulls Daryl down and presses his lips against his. His mouth is soft and his beard scratchy. Daryl almost collapses on top of him again at the shock of it, but he gets himself together and pushes back against the scout’s mouth. He gasps softly when Paul slides his tongue across his lips, and Daryl opens his mouth to let him in.

Daryl wants to keep kissing him. In that moment, he doesn’t think he ever wants to stop, but his stomach lurches violently, and he tears away from Paul’ mouth as he feels bile rise in his throat. He scrambles up Paul’s body so he can lean over the edge of the hay bale, his stomach hovering over the younger man’s face as he gags once, and then pukes loudly. 

Immediately, Paul bursts out laughing, and he shifts his hands to Daryl’s hips, holding him in place, “I hope that’s because you drank too much.” 

He vomits again, the acidic taste of it burning his throat, “Asshole,” he growls, and vomits twice more before he feels that he’s done, rolling onto his side on the bale. He can feel the warmth of Paul pressed up beside him. 

Paul continues to drunkenly giggle for the next few moments before he pulls himself to his feet, and he grabs Daryl by the wrist and pulls him up too. Daryl groans as he’s forced to sit up, his stomach rolling, but he doesn’t feel the urge to throw up again. 

“Come on,” Paul says, holding his hand out “Want to come to my room?”

Daryl contemplates the offer. He’s drunk, but not drunk enough to miss the intention behind the action of going to back to Paul’s room, and he decides that for once, he just wants something for him. Nobody wants anything of him tonight, no watch duties, no hunts or traps to check, no walkers to kill, just Paul and an invitation into his bed. 

Daryl takes Paul’s hand and gets to his feet. Paul’s fingers stay wrapped around his as he begins to lead him from the stables to the building where he’d been given a temporary room.

When they reach it, Paul shoves him toward the sink in the corner and tells him to brush his teeth, which is fair, Daryl wouldn’t want to kiss someone who tasted like vomit either. As he brushes his teeth, he turns to watch Paul, who’s stumbling around as he pulls off his boots and pants. He does fall as he pushes his pants down his legs, falling forward into almost a ‘downward dog’ position before he catches himself and Daryl accidentally spits out frothy toothpaste as he snorts. 

Paul gets to his feet again as Daryl turns back to the sink and spits, and Paul creeps up behind him once he’s rinsing. His body presses flush against him and he wraps his arms around his middle as his mouth meets the side of Daryl’s neck, pressing soft kisses to his skin, a juxtaposition to the roughness of his beard against the same skin. After wiping his mouth, Daryl is quick to turn around and shove his mouth onto the younger man’s. 

He’s never really kissed anyone before, not properly like he was now. He wasn’t kissing some girl Merle had around the house with his friends to stop his brother from making jokes about him being a queer, or the few other girls when he’d been a young teen and did it to be like all the other boys who talked about their girlfriends at lunch time. 

Kissing Paul felt like it was supposed to. It was messy and slightly rushed as they pulled at each other’s clothes and eventually collapsed onto the bed, still unmade from where Paul had slept in it the night before, alcohol removing all sense of nervousness from Daryl as he threaded fingers into Paul’s hair and used an arm over his back to pull him down closer on top of him. Paul’s shirt is off, so he can feel the warmth of his skin, the slight hair on his chest and lower stomach. They both have underwear on, and Daryl his sleeveless button up, which he doesn’t know if he’d let Paul take off. His stomach bubbles with excitement and all traces of nausea have faded.

Paul begins rolling his hips down against Daryl’s as he works his tongue inside of his mouth, and Daryl pulls back from the younger man’s mouth to groan softly, vaguely aware that Paul wasn’t the only one who had a room in this area of the building, and someone would probably be able to hear them if they got too loud. Paul doesn’t seem to mind, pushing his face into Daryl’s neck and licking a stripe over the sweaty skin, sucking and nibbling between kisses. 

They’re both hard in their pants, Daryl painfully so, which is relieving as on the walk back to Paul’s room it had crossed his mind that the combination of alcohol and being a little older than Paul would leave him unable to get it up, but apparently, all his body needed was Paul’s mouth on his for him to be rock hard. Maybe it was the desperation of finally sticking a foot out of the closet after being locked up in it for decades. 

He can feel Paul’s cock through his underwear, enough to make out that despite his smaller frame, he’s well-endowed, definitely bigger than himself. 

Daryl feels desperation building in his stomach, and he grabs Paul by the ass, squeezing the firm yet supple flesh, and if he wasn’t so drunk, he would have noticed that Paul tensed and paused the movements of his mouth before Daryl used his grip to pull Paul’s crotch down harder against his own. Paul moves to shift himself onto his elbows and wide, glassy eyes meet Daryl’s as the younger man transfers his focus to the movement of his hips. 

Daryl isn’t going to last long. He knows that. He’s leaking pre-come into his underwear already and he can feel pressure building in his balls and stomach. 

“Fuck,” Paul curses, voice gravely and low, laced with pleasure. It’s the single sexiest thing Daryl’s ever heard, especially given the scout doesn’t curse too often. Before Daryl can start thinking of ways to get the scout to keep talking, he kisses him again and bites on his lower lip. Daryl moves his hands from the younger man’s ass, one cupping the back of his neck to make sure he keeps kissing him, and the other feeling across the hard planes of his stomach; if Daryl were in a different position, he’d be sliding his tongue over them. 

Only a few minutes later their rhythmic thrusts have grown erratic, and Paul bites down on Daryl’s neck before murmuring, “Come on, Daryl,” and that’s all it takes for the older man. He groans loudly and presses Paul’s face into his neck as he comes, thighs shaking and his breath catching. The teeth that bite into his neck and the muffled curse are the indicator that Paul’s coming too. 

Paul pulls back from his neck after a few moments and kisses him sloppily, and they pant into each other’s mouths before Paul climbs off of him and collapses down onto the bed beside him. He makes a displeased sound, and Daryl watches as he pulls his soiled underwear off, wipes at his cock with them then throws them across the room. Daryl’s eyes flicker down to look at the other man’s cock. It’s quickly softening but it makes Daryl’s stomach stir all the same. 

He finds Paul smirking at him, the parts of his cheeks not hidden by his beard flushed a dark red, “I know that feels gross,” he says, motioning to Daryl’s still covered crotch, “Cover yourself with the blanket if you’re shy,” he says. 

Daryl rolls his eyes, but the feeling come in his underwear is far from pleasant, so he pulls his legs up and removes his boxers, following Paul’s lead in wiping himself off before throwing them across the room in the same general direction that the scout had. 

“Nice dick,” Paul says then chuckles. 

“You too,” Daryl grunts without much thought and he rolls over, wanting to be closer to the younger man. Paul shifts away from him, and Daryl feels a pang in his chest before he realises Paul was just grabbing the blankets bunched up at the end of the bed. He slides an arm over Daryl’s shoulder and pulls him down with him when he falls back onto the mattress and pulls the blankets up over their mostly naked bodies, the only item of clothing being Daryl’s shirt. It’s officially the second month of winter and Daryl has never done well with the cold, so he’s grateful for Paul’s arm around his shoulders, holding him against his side as their body heat melds together. 

“G’night,” Paul slurs eventually, and Daryl grunts softly in reply. 

The early hour of the morning combined with the alcohol and the peaceful aftermath of an orgasm make it easy to fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi welcome to chapter 2 :)

When Daryl awakens, stomach churning with nausea and his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth with thirst, he’s greeted by the sight of a half-naked scout stumbling around as he hurriedly pulls pants up his legs.

Daryl rubs at his eyes as he sits up, glancing at the quietly ticking clock on the nightstand that tells him it’s just after seven am. He fists his hands into the softness of the duvet that pools around his hips and turns his gaze back to the scout. The churning in his gut turns from nausea to anxiety as the events of just hours ago refresh itself in his memory. Heat rises in his cheeks immediately.

Before he can put together what to say, Paul turns around, reaching for his shirt which laid on the end of the bed. He visibly stiffens once he sees that Daryl is awake. His avoidance of Daryl’s eyes and his quiet ‘morning’ quickly makes it obvious that the younger man had intended on slipping out of the room before Daryl woke up.

“Hey,” Daryl grunts, lifting his hand to his mouth and chewing at the hangnails around his thumb, a nervous habit he’d had since he was a child. His stomach churns uncomfortably again, and he rushes to the sink where he’d brushed his teeth the previous night, and bends over it, gripping the sides tightly.

“Have you ever been able to take your alcohol?” Paul asks flatly from behind him.

“Ain’t drank that much in a long time,” Daryl huffs, which was true, even that night with Beth after the fall of the prison he hadn’t consumed as much as he had during the New Year’s Eve celebrations. Paul remains silent behind him, and Daryl dry heaves once, but doesn’t vomit. He knows that if he forced himself to, he’d probably feel a hell of a lot better, but he figured that wouldn’t be cute for Paul to see, so he turns and sits on the edge of the bed.

Paul stares down at him, nimble fingers buttoning up his shirt and Daryl watches as his pale skin disappears, “You alright?” he asks finally, and Daryl can see his throat bobbing with a swallow beneath his beard.

“Are you?” Daryl retorts. The scout is acting drastically different than what he had been the previous night; he’d been all sweet smiles and laughs, eager to touch Daryl and receive his in return, but now, he was undeniably distant and uncomfortable.

“I’m fine,” He replies and chooses to sit in the chair across the room to pull his boots on instead of on the bed beside him, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Daryl fiddles with his fingers in his lap, “You were a lot more welcomin’ last night,” he grumbles, and now that the alcohol has mostly left his system, the confidence he had last night has dissipated and he’s left with his usual socially anxious self.

“I have places to be,” Paul replies, doing up the laces on his second boot, and Daryl would have to be an idiot to not notice that the scout’s behaviour was incredibly out of character. It had been five minutes and he was yet to make any sarcastic comment or any attempt at humour, “So do you. Carol wanted to talk to you, remember?”

Daryl has a vague recollection the conversation he’d had with the older woman early on the night before, it seemed like it would be somewhat serious one before Tara and Glenn had showed up with a bottle of vodka and dragged him off to play poker.

“Yeah,” Daryl replied, but he doubted it was something that demanded his attention before eight-am, the same for wherever Paul had to be. After last night, he doubted a lot of people would even be up. Last night, before falling asleep, he had apparently naively, looked forward to waking up in the morning beside Paul, that he could kiss him again and maybe, enjoy something similar to what they had done last night, just a lot more sober.

Now, completely dressed and his boots laced, Paul stands and makes his way to the door, “See you later,” he says and slips out the door, closing it behind him.

Daryl stares at the wooden door for several seconds afterward, and then collapses down onto the bed, groaning softly as he fists his hands into his greasy hair. The familiar urge to grab his crossbow and disappear into the woods to ignore his feelings rising within him, but he decides to let a little time pass before he follows Paul out, because despite having enjoyed last night, he didn’t exactly want to be caught doing the walk of shame. 

A dull pounding ache begins behind his eyes and he reaches up to try and massage at it. He can’t deny the hurt he feels after Paul’s abrupt departure, like the man had used him to get off and then couldn’t give a shit about him in the morning. He hates that despite the brewing anger and hurt toward the younger man, he would probably crawl back into his bed if he asked him to. After all, he’d known he was gay probably since he was in his early twenties, perhaps earlier, he’d just always refused to acknowledge it, buried deep down and had no reason to dig it back up until a few months ago when he’d met the dumbass that called himself ‘Jesus’ and was deadlier than all of them.

He waits a few minutes more before dressing and leaving the room, however he has no intention of going to speak to Carol like Paul had reminded him to; the woman knew him better than probably anyone and would see right through any façade he put on about being fine, and he certainly didn’t feel like having a heart to heart with her about how hurt he felt that Paul didn’t stick around to give him morning-after cuddles.

He makes his way to the tent where he was meant to have slept last night. There’s a number of them propped around the Kingdom’s small oval, and finds that thankfully, nobody else is awake to question where he was coming from. He collects his bow and knives, and the small pack he carries his usual supplies in before making his way to the front gates, and then into the denseness of the woods. He doesn’t see Paul watching him go.

* * *

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Carol asks, offering him a different kind of fruit after he’d refused an orange, and then another when he refuses that too.

“I don’t belong here,” he replies, and finally snags the apple from her hand, juice dribbling down his chin when he bites into it.

“I thought the same, but now I can’t imagine being back at Alexandria,” she says, tearing open an orange for herself, picking the seeds out of it, “Here is good.”

“Good for you,” he says, proceeding to hold the apple between the teeth as he continues to skin one of the rabbits he’d caught on his hunt that morning.

“The Kingdom would be a good place for you to settle, Daryl. We’d see more of each other, and the King thinks quite highly of you. He’d be thrilled to know you’d be here permanently.”

“The King’s a bullshitter,” he grunts, “With his dumbass act. You honestly think I’d play into that? Naw, I don’t belong here.”

“So, you’re going to go back to Alexandria?” She asks, but it’s no serious question, “You know Rick wants you to go back to the Sanctuary to keep things in order. He’ll try and talk you into it again.”

He supposes all her questioning is fair. In the three months since the war had ended, he’d been bouncing around the communities, going wherever his help was needed. He didn’t stay in one place more than a few weeks. He was often sent scavenging with Paul, which is how the trust that had been built between them during the war, turned into a genuine friendship, and for Daryl, the beginning of feelings that were slowly, becoming harder and harder to squash down, especially now, after last night.

“I ain’t ever setting foot in that Sanctuary again, whole place and everyone in it can die for all I care,” he snarls. Two weeks ago, he’d spent three days at the Sanctuary before a guy he recognised as one of those who’d tortured him, called him Negan’s bitch and Daryl had proceeded to beat him within an inch of his life until Paul, who had been making a supply drop, had pulled him off and managed to calm him down. Paul had taken him back with him to the Hilltop that night, and Daryl had stayed there until everyone travelled to the Kingdom for the holiday celebrations.

“Then where? Hilltop?”

Daryl shrugged, throwing a handful of guts into the tub Carol had provided him with, “Probably. Maggie and Glenn are there, baby ain’t far away. Tara too. Help Paul out with scavenging.”

“You think you can see yourself settling down there?” Carol asks, soft and curious. She’s disappointed that he hadn’t agreed to stay, but he knows her well enough, and her the same for him, and she never would have seriously believed he would stay.

Her words are a painful reminder of what Abraham had asked him when they’d first travelled to the Hilltop and were waiting for Maggie to return from talking to Gregory. _‘You ever think about it? Settling down?’_ and ultimately, that train of thought leads him back to Paul. It was late afternoon now, hours since he and the scout had woken up, but he hadn’t seen him since, and he wonders where he got to, what places he had to be. He avoids Carol’s eyes, focusing on peeling back the fur of a new rabbit.

“Shit ain’t settled.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy <3

The Hilltop residents make their leave from the Kingdom on January 2nd. They pile into their cars and RVs a few hours after sunrise after exchanging goodbyes with those from the Kingdom and the Alexandrians.

Paul can’t deny the sense of relief he feels when he watches Daryl hug Carol goodbye before climbing onto his bike and following the cars out the front gate. Though Daryl had seemed happy, or at least, content at Hilltop for the two weeks he’d been there since leaving the Sanctuary with Paul, he would be lying to say it hadn’t been playing heavily on his mind where the hunter would go once the celebrations were over. The only thing he was certain of, was that Rick would have to do a hell of a lot convincing to get him to go back to Sanctuary.

Paul had travelled to the Kingdom in a car with Maggie and Glenn, the two of them pissing the southern woman off to no end as they sung loudly to the Britney Spears album that had they’d found tucked in the glove compartment. He’d intended to go back the same way, however, to his surprise, he’d been gifted a gorgeous black gelding by King Ezekiel that he’d been looking forward to riding back to the Hilltop ever since Christmas Day.

He and Ezekiel had been friends since their first meeting when Paul had first discovered the Kingdom and had climbed into what he thought was an empty building to avoid detection, but instead was greeted with the sight of a growling tigress. He’d looked into the eyes of the beast and thought that he was going to die as the creature backed him into a wall, growling low as she sniffed at his middle. He’d expected her to take a bite out of him, instead she nudged at him until he realised what she was searching for; the fresh rabbit he had in his pack. He’d fed it to the tiger, and she’d swallowed it almost whole, giving him no to time to escape, so he took a different approach: convincing her not to kill him. Soon she was purring and leaning into his hands. That’s how Ezekiel had found them, and he’d simply grinned and said, “Well, Shiva likes you,” and by the next afternoon they had established trade agreement. 

Paul knew that King Ezekiel was just a mask, and there was a different man beneath it, and in turn, he’d shared things with the older man too. He told Ezekiel about the horse he owned a few years before the outbreak, and how he hadn’t ridden since he’d died. Ezekiel had had handed him Crow’s lead rope and told him the end of the War marked the beginning of the New World, and it was time to let go of the past.

He checks Crow’s girth before he mounts, and salutes a goodbye to Ezekiel, who watches on with Carol before he follows the others out of the gates.

The vehicles were quick to disappear down the roads, and those few on horses stuck to a trot as to not exhaust the horses and still keep a steady pace, but Paul doesn’t want to ride with them. He hasn’t had a lot of opportunity to get to know Crow, so he wanted to enjoy the ride, learn his stride and how he worked, to earn his trust and his loyalty.

Eduardo called out to him after a few minutes, when he realised how far behind Paul and Crow had fallen, but Paul waved him off and after a moment’s hesitation the small group disappeared around the bend in the road.

Paul watched them go as he stroked down the gelding’s neck. He reaches over and pushes up his right sleeve, revealing the woven leather bracelet that’s fastened there. He’d found it on his pillow Christmas morning after coming out of the shower, and it definitely wasn’t there when he’d woken up. He knew it was from Daryl, and he knew the man had snuck in to leave it there because Paul had done the same the day they left for the Kingdom, dropping a new pair of boots (which he’d made sure were in Daryl’s size) outside the room in Barrington House he’d been staying in.

The fact that both of them had covertly given their gifts to each other, and hadn’t acknowledged it after the fact further than wearing their respective items showed just how out of tune they were with acknowledging their friendship was more than teasing and sarcasm, the occasional flirt or slightly inappropriate comment. They knew they cared for each other, they knew they trusted each other, and Paul knew that he would lay his life on the line for the hunter, and he would do the same. They just never talked about it. 

After he’d found the bracelet on his pillow, he immediately fastened it around his wrist, after all, Daryl had been wearing his new boots when Paul next saw him. He traced over the leather braid much like was now, smiling and feeling fondness spread through him before he was hit with the sudden realisation of how shit his gift was compared to Daryl’s. Sure, Daryl’s boots were old and worn with holes in the faded leather, and his new ones were expensive in the old world and completely untouched, but it was impersonal. Daryl had given him a piece of jewellery that he had made himself, he’d taken the time to cut the leather and engrave a pattern into one of the strands, and then weave them together, making the clasp adjustable to ensure it would fit however Paul liked. Paul had given him a pair of boots he’d picked up on a run. He felt more embarrassed about it than he would have if it were anyone else.

He liked his and Daryl’s relationship. They worked well together, they had meaningless conversations, they had each other’s backs. They didn’t expect too much of each other. They didn’t rely on each other, they didn’t _need_ each other. At least that’s how it used to be, but over the past week, since Daryl had come to Hilltop, he had felt that things were changing, and that was starting to make him nervous, and then they both got piss-drunk and screwed over Paul’s plans of ignoring every feeling he had toward the hunter that went beyond ‘I don’t want him to die’.

Now, he didn’t know how he could do that. Not when he’d felt Daryl’s mouth on his, had heard the sounds he made when Paul was making him feel good, and had seen the look on his face as he came. He knows that his behaviour yesterday morning had made him a class-a asshole, because while that’s how all of Paul’s relationships had been before the turn, fuck for the night and then it’s over in the morning, he knew Daryl wasn’t like that, that he wouldn’t be happy in that kind of arrangement, but Paul didn’t know anything else. He didn’t know how to feel anything else.

* * *

Daryl had to circle back forty minutes on his bike to locate the scout. He and the other vehicles had arrived back at the Hilltop just before midday without a hitch, and the group of riders just a few hours later. He’d noticed immediately that Paul and his new gelding weren’t among them, and Maggie the same just moments later. While Eduardo told them that Paul was fine and had simply chosen to stick to a walk unlike the rest of them and had willingly fallen behind as a result.

Maggie, yet to completely relax after the end of the war had been quick to send Daryl out after him, to make he was okay, given it would have been three hours since anyone had seen him.

He finds the scout perfectly fine, sat on the side of the road, on the bonnet of an old, wrecked car, Crow tied to the side mirror, dozing with his back foot cocked. He can see the younger man is already looking in his direction when he rounds the bend in the road, probably having started to hear the rumble of the motorcycle a few minutes ago. Daryl feels the urge to chew him out for assuming it was him and not some other asshole on a bike that would try to hurt him.

Crow lifts his head as Daryl nears, and tries to step away when Daryl parks the bike too close to him, nickering lowly. He quickly settles when Daryl shuts off the bike and Paul strokes a gentle, gloved hand down the bridge of his nose, and Daryl makes a point of hushing softly as he moves around the animal.

“Ezekiel says he’s still a bit spooky,” Paul explains, and pets the hood of the car, inviting Daryl to sit.

Daryl does, “Dangerous isn’t? If he gets scared of somethin’ ‘n throws you.”

Paul closes the book Daryl had only just realised he was holding; it wasn’t a regular book, it appeared to be a journal, “I can handle him,” he replies, tucking the leatherbound book into his pocket, “Do you have a cigarette?”

Daryl grunts and reaches into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out the half-empty box and lighter. He lights one, takes a drag and then hands it to the younger man, “You don’t smoke a lot,” he says, watching as Paul takes a deep breath of the smoke.

“I know.”

“Why now?”

Paul shrugs, and hands the cigarette back when Daryl holds his hand out for it, “I just wanted to one,” he tells him, “Why are you here anyway?”

“Maggie sent me,” He answered, handing back the cigarette and leaning back, bracing himself on his elbows, “Didn’t like that you didn’t stick with the others, she was worried something might happen.”

Paul huffs, “She worries too much.”

“Cares ‘bout ya, doesn’t wanna lose anyone else.”

“That so?” The scout murmurs, looking back over his shoulder at him, eyebrows pulled together and his lips closed around the cigarette. Daryl can’t help but stare, and hope, wondering what would happen if he knocked on Paul’s door later tonight, once they got back and everyone else had gone off to bed.

“Yeah,” Daryl replies, and then turns his gaze back to the sky, hoping that Paul doesn’t see the red flush on his cheeks.

Paul sighs, stretches his arms above his head, and has another drag of the cigarette, “Just let me finish this and we can head back.”

Daryl nods his agreement, eyes glued to the wet patch of Paul’s button up, where he’d sweated through. He doesn’t know what possess him to reach out, but he does, brushing his fingers over the material of his shirt, feeling the warmth of the skin beneath it. Paul doesn’t say anything, or even react, Daryl knows he can feel his touch, but he just keeps on smoking.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to chapter 4, enjoy x
> 
> (Yes it’s a bit of a filler chapter, sorry about that)

“I want to fuck you so bad.”

Paul’s breath flutters over his cheek his hand grabs at his ass and Daryl is absolutely going to murder him, but then Paul steps back from where he’d pushed Daryl flush up against the wall, and continues down the hall to where the others had gathered in the main corridor in the first floor of the mall.

Daryl swears quietly to himself then follows Paul out of the hall. He finds the others – Rick, Carl, Tara, Rosita, Glenn and Aaron - grouped together, beginning to discuss what the easiest way to sort the goods and then pack them into the vehicle would be. There are several large piles of bags, folded down boxes and large containers splayed around the area that they’d carried in to pack goods into.

He stands beside Tara who’s sucking on a lollipop and watching Rosita, completely unsubtly, as she argued with Rick. Daryl would be the first to admit that Rick could be a little bossy on runs, and Rosita still held a grudge against the man for his decision to keep Negan alive, and it seemed the young woman had jumped on the chance to have a spat with the man. Daryl understood, he and Rick still weren’t on the best terms, and he still held a fair bit of anger toward the older man, and since the two of them were completely sober today, unlike they had been at the New Year’s celebrations, Daryl had most mostly avoided him.

Daryl’s too busy lost in his thoughts and trying to forget the words that Paul had murmured in his ear only moments earlier when he hears his name, “Huh?” he finds Paul looking at him, a slight smirk hidden behind his beard and Daryl wants to slap him up the side of the head, and then happily do what the man had teased.

“Rick’s way or Rosita’s?” Paul asked.

Daryl shrugged, “Sweeping all the floors and shops before we start grabbin’ is a waste of time, sweep as we go, but packin’ the cars as we go ain’t gonna be safe.”

Paul nods, “I agree. Ideally, we’d sweep everything first, but we don’t have the time. We’re going to be here two days at the least. The winter storms could start any day now and we need to get back home with these supplies ASAP,” he explains, arms crossed over his chest and brows pulled together, closed off and waiting for someone to challenge him. Daryl had seen that happen countless times throughout the wars, and each time Paul had been right, “But the only way to get to the cars is through those big glass doors there, which we’re going to have to smash because there’s no power. We don’t want to get rid the only barrier between us and the dead, should they turn up, until we have to.”

Rosita nods, apparently pleased, “Yeah, he’s right. We gather everything down here in the foyer; some smaller things can be taken through the fire escape doors we just came into the cars, but we need to keep those big doors up. That parking lot is exposed from every angle, if a herd is in those woods and hears us stuffing around in here, we need the security.”

Rick is quiet for a moment, then nods his agreement, “Alright. Three floors, four wings a floor. Split up into pairs and take a wing each until we’re done.”

With that, everyone stands and splits into pairs, Tara bounding over to Rosita and hooking her arm through hers, and Daryl quickly motions Paul over with his head before Rick can try it. Paul, the asshole, grins like the popular kid who got picked first on sports day and steps over to Daryl, “Let’s go to the top floor, they’ve got a bookstore up there,” the ninja says.

Daryl pulls his empty pack of his shoulder – they all had one, it was an unspoken rule of these scavenging trips they could grab things for themselves – and follows the younger man toward the non-functioning escalators, “How do you know that?”

“I looked at the centre map obviously,” Paul calls back and jogs up the escalators, Daryl huffing as he follows after him.

* * *

Daryl and Paul spend hours filtering through the stores on the top floor, after Paul spending at least a solid hour going through the bookstore to select what he wanted for himself before they’d pack the rest away to split between the communal libraries. Paul uses the damn notebook that he carries with him everywhere, the one that Daryl’s caught him jotting or sketching in at random times, to take stock of the most important stores and the goods they held, snagging things for themselves as they went.

Daryl’s in the process of carrying boxes from the storerooms of a women’s clothing shop into the main corridor when Paul appears from the technology store he’d been searching through for Eugene. Paul dumps down a large container and then sits down on top of it, pulling his pack of his shoulders and beginning to rifle through it.

“Lunch time, I think,” he says, pulling out two wrapped sandwiches and holding one out for Daryl. Daryl takes it, sitting down on the laminate floor opposite him. He unwraps the sandwich and then quickly begins devouring it.

Paul snorts at him and takes a much more delicate bite of his own, “You eat like a dog,” he says, and before Daryl can retort with his own well-meant insult, Paul opens his big mouth again, “You better not fuck like one.”

“Man, I swear to god, if you don’t quit it with that gay shit when other people are around-“

“Ah so you’re only opposed to ‘that gay shit’ when we’re not alone?”

Daryl grabs the nearest pair of socks he can reach and throws them at the hippie’s head, said hippie, of course catching them, “You’re a dick,” Daryl huffs.

Paul laughs loudly and throws the socks back, hitting Daryl in the chest with them, and of course, Daryl throws them back, so from there it escalates with the two of them pegging pairs of socks and rolled up underwear at each other, sandwiches long forgotten as their swears and snorts of laughter echo around the mall as they duck behind columns and behind old couches.

“Hey!”

Rick’s voice calls out to them from somewhere near the escalators and they retreat from their hiding places, Daryl still gripping a pair of socks tightly in his hand. He can feel his cheeks flush with heat at being caught behaving so ridiculously by Rick; the man is looking between them, an expression on his face that Daryl can’t look at long enough to read.

“What’s up?” Paul asks, sitting back down on his container and picking up his sandwich. Daryl follows suite and sits on the floor where he’d been before they’d broke out into their ‘sock war’.

“I was jus’ checkin’ on everyone. Heard the commotion,” Rick explains, looking in between the two of them curiously, like there’s about a different dozen questions on the tip of his tongue that he could ask.

Daryl pretends to take great interest in finishing off the last of his sandwich, avoiding the former Sherriff’s eyes.

“Daryl started it,” Paul says, and Daryl looks over at him, watching as he smirks when he replies to Rick, and Daryl knows the prick enjoys the fact that Rick is curious to what’s going on between them, and just doesn’t know what. It was Michonne who’d said to him a few days ago that Rick was hurt by Daryl’s behaviour toward him as of late, and that everyone had noticed that he and Jesus had become friends during the war, that she thought Rick was probably beginning to feel a little replaced. Daryl hadn’t even dignified that with a response because for once in his life he wasn’t being selfish and was allowing himself to spend some time with the guy he cared about, instead of the one that had betrayed him.

“Uh-huh,” Rick hums, shifting on his feet and crossing his arms over his chest, “Is everything going alright up here?” 

“Well, we expect a slight delay now we’ve got to go and clean up all those socks that Daryl threw,” Paul begins smirking even wider when Daryl tries to cut him off, the prick, “But other than that, just fine.”

“Alright,” Rick replies, and with one final glance between the two of them, begins to walk back to the escalators, “We’re all meeting tonight on the second floor, there’s a big mattress store there we’ll sleep in. Come on down whenever you’re done for the night,” he shouts back at them.

Daryl looks back at Paul and finds the younger man already staring at him, “Things still aren’t great between you two?” he asks quietly, to be sure Rick can’t hear him from where he’s trudging down the escalator steps, the heel of his boots thudding loudly each time they connect.

Daryl shrugs, “Just struggling to get past keepin’ Negan alive, after he promised he’d kill him.”

Paul nods, and tucks the plastic wrap of his sandwich into his pocket as he swallowed down the final bites, “I understand, well, I don’t really, the things that were done to you weren’t done to me, and I could never imagine how Sasha felt and Rosita felt, but I know it hurt when I had to put Sasha down, and that was because of Negan. I wanted him dead too.”

Daryl’s chest pangs at the mention of Sasha’s death, but he realises that he’d never known who’d put her down, just that she’d turned, and she was buried at The Hilltop beside Abraham, “It’s not like I hate him or somethin’, jus’ after what happened at the Sanctuary, it’s just been hard, and now with you, keeping Rick happy hasn’t been the first thing on my mind.”

Paul’s brows furrow, “What do you mean, now with me?” he asks softly, like he’s afraid to hear the answer.

Daryl becomes suddenly interested in the frayed edge of pants, where he has his ankle folded over his thigh. He can feel Paul’s burning gaze on him and after taking a few moments to gather up the courage, he sighs heavily, and answers, “Since coming back to the Hilltop, I guess I’ve just been focused on you, especially after New Year’s… I just-“ he pauses and swallows down the sudden, choking lump in his throat and forces himself to look up and meet Paul’s eyes, “I like being around you, feels like the world’s changing now, and we can focus on other things.”

A small smile spreads over Paul’s mouth and he drops down off the container, kneeling in front of Daryl and gently cupping his jaw. Daryl grabs for his waist in turn and holds him as he leans down and presses their mouths together. They hadn’t kissed since New Year’s, Paul had stuck to feeling him up and sucking his neck instead, and Daryl sighs against the other man’s mouth; he’d been so eager to feel it against his own ever since. Paul’s other hand lands on his neck, just resting there gently, seeking more warm skin to touch, but Daryl can’t deny how it makes him begin harden in his pants and to his own surprise, he feels the urge to push against Paul’s hand, feel the pressure-

Paul detaches their mouths and pulls back to look at him, “Come on, we’ve still got work to do.”

“You’re kidding right?” Daryl huffs, reaching down to adjust himself in his pants, “Rick’s done his rounds, no one else with bother us.”

Paul chuckles and leans down to kiss him again, soft and brief, “As tempting as it is to go and lock ourselves away in a storage cupboard, we really need to keep going,” he says as he gets to his feet, holding a gloved hand out for Daryl to take.

Daryl huffs and takes the younger man’s hand, “What happened to wanting to fuck me so bad?” he asks as the other man pulls him up.

Paul smirks at him, “Oh, baby, I do,” he says, and Daryl almost chokes at the pet name, “Just not until we’ve got proper privacy and a bed that I can take you apart in.”

“The hell’dya say it for then? “Daryl huffs, Paul’s words doing nothing to calm him down.

Paul picks up one of the empty boxes and then steps around behind him, and Daryl jumps when he’s suddenly smacked on the ass, “To rile you up of course,” he replies, his voice full of mirth and then proceeds down the corridor into the next store.

Daryl watches him go for a few seconds, then calls him a prick under his breath and heads back into the women’s clothing store, hoping that this mission is over quickly so that they can go back to the Hilltop where they have the privacy of Paul’s trailer of Daryl’s room, where there’s definitely a bed in both.

As he carries boxes from the store, he can’t help the happiness he feels in his stomach at how receptive Paul had been to his slight confession.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos & comments are loved & help me write more
> 
> Check out my tumblr @iiloulouii


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